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A research agenda that integrates understanding of the social processes with technical analysis of climate and energy systems is necessary to catalyse a transition to a low-carbon world.
Strong positive selection on cold hardiness and relaxed selection on heat hardiness experienced by range-expanding populations may help to explain why ectothermic animals generally have broader thermal tolerance towards the poles, and shed new light on their climate vulnerabilities.
Modelled patterns of climate change impacts on sub-Saharan agriculture provide a detailed picture of the space- and timescales of change. They reveal hotspots where crop cultivation may disappear entirely, but also large areas where current or substitute crops will remain viable through this century.
This Perspective introduces a special Collection titled Energy, Climate and Society—jointly produced by Nature Energy and Nature Climate Change—that focuseson the social science insights into the linked problems of energy sustainability and climate change.
Reducing energy usage is important for climatechange mitigation. This Perspective focuses on the use and promise of agent-based modelling to understand the complexities of energy demand, including consumer behaviour.
This Perspective describes a decision science approach to applying sociological and behavioural research to the design of effective climate- and energy-related policies.
Deep international cooperation will be needed to tackle climate change. This Perspective looks at how decentralized policy coordination involving partial efforts to build confidence and reduce emissions could foster such cooperation.
Building bridges between three analytical approaches with quite different foundational bases should lead to a more comprehensive understanding of low-carbon transitions, in turn leading to more informed and effective policy decisions.
Research now shows that there is a large discrepancy between how much megacities spend on adaptation. Those in developing countries spend considerably less per person than their developed counterparts, despite being the most vulnerable.
The application of a new metric of seasonal onset over Europe to existing observational data sets indicates that the start of summer has advanced significantly over recent decades, a trend expected to continue under global warming.
Release of carbon previously locked in permafrost is a potentially important positive climate feedback. Now metagenomics reveal the vulnerability of active-layer soil carbon to warming-induced microbial decomposition in Alaskan tundra.
About 70% of agricultural output variance due to climate in Mato Grosso, Brazil was determined by changes in cropping frequency and/or changes in cropping area rather than yield (the most common climate impact indicator), a study now shows.
Climate change may necessitate transformative adaptation of agricultural systems. Research now indicates when and where the cultivation of key crops in sub-Saharan African will become unviable.
The extent to which distant populations fluctuate similarly has significant ecological consequences, but can be difficult to investigate. Now research reveals the drivers of phenological synchrony for aphid pest species across the United Kingdom.
The degree of spatial synchrony of many North American wintering bird species has increased over the past 50 years. This may affect ecological resilience by decreasing the potential for demographic rescue from interacting subpopulations.
Research now shows that broad thermal niches observed in high-latitude ectotherms apply only to species undergoing range expansion or invasion. Non-range-expanding species are therefore unlikely to tolerate climatic warming at high latitudes.
Meta-analysis shows people’s views on climate change have only a small impact on their tendencies to act in climate-friendly ways. These views are affected more by ideology and political orientation than education, sex and experience of extreme weather.
An ensemble of climate model simulations, as well as hydrological modelling and flood risk mapping, are used to show the role of anthropogenic warming on the extreme rainfall that caused the 2013/14 floods in southern England.
